Terminal for conductor wires



ly '9, 1929- D. l. MARSHALL .60

TERMINAL FOR CONDUCTOR WIRES Filed July 12, 1927 7 I :Fi plf gmentw ILLMarshalL a? I a wy Patented July 9, 1929.

UNITED STATES DAVID I. MARSHALL, OF NEW LONDON, IOWA.

TERMINAL FOR CONDUCTOR WIRES.

Application filed July 12,

This invention relates to a terminal for a conductor wire and one object of the invention is to provide a terminal by means of which a conductor wire may be very easily connected with a terminal post of a battery and securely held in engagement therewith but permitted to be easily and quickly detached from the terminal post when so desired.

Another object of the invention is to so form the conductor wire terminal that when it is applied to a terminal post of a battery it may cut through scale which may have been formed upon the terminal post by corrosion and thereby form a good electric contact with the terminal post.

Another object of the invention is to provide the wire terminal with arms between which the terminal post of a battery may be firmly wedged and to so shape one of the arms that it may be wedged into a sleeve connected with a terminal post of a battery.

The invention is illustrated in the accompanying drawing, wherein Figure 1 is a top plan view showing conductor wires connected with a battery by means of the improved wire terminals;

Fig. 2 is an enlarged top plan view of one of the terminals before it is applied to a conductor wire Fig. 3 is a side elevation of the terminal applied to a conductor wire, and

Fig. 4 is a top plan View showing the terminal engaged with a sleeve carried by a terminal post of a battery.

The wire terminal constituting the subjectmatter of this invention is intended to permit conductor wires 1 to be connected with the terminal posts 2 of a storage battery 3 with the terminal of the wire either applied directly to a battery terminal post, as shown in Fig. 1, or engaged with a sleeve 4 carried by the terminal post of a battery, as shown in Fig. 4. The wire terminal which is indicated in general by the numeral 5 is formed of conductive sheet metal and at one end is provided with side arms 6 intended to be bent about the conductor wire in tight clamping engagement therewith after the wire has been soldered to the terminal. In the preferred form, an opening 7 is provided so that the conductor wire may have an end portion from which its insulation has been removed passed through the 1927. Serial No. 205,235.

opening before it is soldered to the terminal. A slot which extends longitudinally of the plate leads from the opposite end thereof from the arms 6 and divides the plate into longitudinally extending arms 8 and 9. It should be noted that the slot which defines the two arms tapers inwardly and is of such shape that the arm 9 is of substantially the same width throughout its entire length, whereas the inner side edge of the arm 8 extends at an incline in converging relation toward the inner end of the arm 9. By this arrangement a terminal post of a battery may be disposed bet-ween the arms of the terminal and by applying pressure longitudinally of the wire terminal and at the same time turning it about the battery post the inner side edges of the two arms will be caused to cut into opposed side portions of the battery post and the post will be firmly wedged between the two arms of the wire terminal. Therefore, the wire terminal will be firmly connected with the terminal post of a battery and have good contacting engagement therewith but it may be easily detached from the battery post when so desired. The inner and outer side edges of the arm 8 converge toward the outer free end of,this arm and, therefore, the arm 8 tapers towards its free end instead of being of the same width throughout its length. By having the arm 8 taper towards its free end it may be inserted in a sleeve carried by a terminal post of a battery, as shown in Fig. 4, and when pressure is applied to it the tapered arm will be tightly wedged into the sleeve. Therefore, the terminal may be firmly engaged with a sleeve carried by a battery post and have good contacting engagement with it but may be easily removed by simply exerting a pulling action to extract the arm from the sleeve. It will thus be seen that by having the wire terminal formed as shown it may be employed to connect a conductor wire either directly to a terminal post of a battery or to a terminal sleeve carried by the battery post.

Having thus described the invention, I claim:

A conductor wire terminal comprising a plate having one end adapted to be connected with a conduct-or wire, said plate having a tapered recess leading from its other end and defining arms adapted to engage opposite sides of a terminal post and having straight out inner side edges, one arm having its inner side edge extending parallel to the longitudinal axis of the plate and the other arm having its inner side edge converging towards the inner end of the inner side edge of the first arm to firmly wedge the post between the arms, the outer side edge of the second arm being straight out and converging towards the outer end of the inner edge thereof to provide 10 DAVI'D I. MARSHALL. [Ls] 

